Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a deploying device for a flap provided at a leading edge or a trailing edge of a main wing of an aircraft, and an aircraft.
Description of the Related Art
In aircrafts, fuel consumption is improved by employing a main wing with a thin airfoil section having a small drag coefficient. Since the airfoil section as described above has a low lift coefficient at low speed, takeoff/landing performance is deteriorated. To allow the aircrafts to take off from and land on a short runway, a flap is provided at a leading edge or a trailing edge of the main wing. When the flap is deployed in a chord direction, a lift coefficient much higher than the original lift coefficient generated by the airfoil section is temporarily obtained. The flap is deployed by a deploying device that is accommodated within the main wing.
In general, the flap deploying device includes a drive source and an actuator including a mechanism that converts power of the drive source to motion of the flap. For example, National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2008-529871 discloses an actuator using a hydraulic cylinder. National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2011-504149 also discloses a rotating pinion and a toothed movement element (rack) that meshes with the pinion. A configuration in which a screw jack is used as an actuator has been also known.
In recent years, there is a demand for improvement in the fuel consumption of aircrafts, and thus, there is a demand for further reduction in the thickness of main wings. However, there are some restrictions. One of the restrictions relates to the flap deploying device described above. Since the device occupies a substantial space within the main wing, the main wing cannot be made thinner depending on a relationship with various components accommodated within the main wing. A portion of the flap deploying device that cannot be accommodated within the main wing (a non-accommodated portion) is covered with a flap track fairing (abbreviated to FTF below) so as to reduce air resistance. If the non-accommodated portion is increased, only the FTF cannot sufficiently reduce the air resistance (improve the fuel consumption).
The present invention has been made in view of the technical problem as described above, and an object thereof is to provide a flap deploying device which can reduce the thickness of a wing by optimizing the arrangement of a flap deploying device.